As we all know, recently there has been a multitude of posts regarding both the cost of VIP and the new list limitations. I know I’m going to get slammed with this post but I read an article recently (PC World) which stated that Trakt pays Younify per user for the data that Trakt needs. Although it should have been obvious, this is an expense that I never considered. I knew about server costs, support costs, development costs and other infrastructure costs but I wonder what other PER USER expenses Trakt incurs.
Here’s where I’m going to get in trouble for this post…
Why is there a free tier at all? It seems that there should be a Basic Trakt Tier to recoup direct expenses like these. Maybe $1/mo or $10/yr? If this were implemented the VIP tier could possibly be backed down to the previous $30/yr sub (and maybe a VIP light to increase list limits for $20/yr?).
If VIPs are subsidizing free users which is the reason behind the price increase then yeah just rip the bandaid off and make Trakt a fully paid service. With tiers and regional pricing though.
Assuming Younify is that important and Trakt can’t let it go.
Well, if you are correct, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, that kills my argument! Although with all the hostility these days, I still think the VIPs are subsidizing the free users who believe they are entitled to get the service for free and I’ll stand by my proposed fee structure.
I may have been mistaken about the use of Younify but, if I were running Trakt, I’d possibly have a free tier for watched history/next up, which I feel is the bare essential use of the app and everything else would be in a sub.
Justin may need to confirm (probably won’t be until Monday at least, I just happened to open the forums ) but I’m almost certain that the “pay per user” is based on VIPs who’ve used the automatic tracking, not for all free users too.
That’s not to say that VIP users don’t subsidise free users - essentially you keep Trakt a thing for everyone, but not when it comes to Younify.
Let’s hope the people who replied to this thread (apart from Trakt people) never create an app in their whole life as it will be a complete disaster.
Remove free tiers? Jesus, I have never read any idea as terrible on this forum (and I have read some terrible replies).
I would like to ask you to go to any movie/series on Trakt, literally any, and take a look at the comments. See how many are VIPs and how many are not. From what I saw, approximately 8 out of 10 comments are non-VIP. I think you fail to realize what proportion free users represent. Not only on Trak but on any freemium app that ever existed (percentages are around 90% to 95% of free users). And on an app with a pretty weak community aspect (most episodes have 0 to 10 comments max, and even a movie like Pulp Fiction has less than 100 comments), do you really want to make it even weaker?
But sure, let’s imagine we remove all free users. The user base will lose a huge part of it (if we could know how many free and paid users the app has would be nice). So the “Most popular”, “Most anticipated”, and “Trending now” sections will be losing all of their relevance because… well… no one uses the app anymore except people who pay, who probably represent a very small percentage. Ratings would also go down, so you cannot really know if a movie was good or not, except by looking at IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. You also would’t get any relevant recommendations or social activity because many friends would just… disappear from the app. And let’s not talk about lists… People used to follow many great, interesting and regularly updated lists from free users, which obviously had more than 100 items. You know what happened next… these lists cannot be updated anymore.
One could argue that “I don’t look at comments, I don’t look at most popular, anticipated, trending, I don’t look at ratings or lists and I don’t have friends on Trakt”. Well, that’s just sad.
Would also be great to check your information before posting something, Younify is indeed only used for the streaming scrobbler, so free users have absolutely nothing to do with it.
And I also don’t understand this crusade against free users. Just… scrobble your streaming services or whatever, and let people complain if they want. Especially when the complaints are justified (100 item watchlist is crazy, but not the subject of this thread so I won’t talk about it more).
While I agree partially with what you’re saying, your assumption is based off assuming people using Trakt in the same fashion you do which appears to be using it for a large part to suggest series and for the reviews.
All of that can easily be replaced by getting comments and suggestions from elsewhere. Personally I use Criticker to decide what new series I might like as that takes my ratings and similarities into account.
Free users and their comments on movies or series are for many purposes for me completely irrelevant. That’s not to say they aren’t for others of course, but if only free users rely on using the suggestions and comments, then they aren’t providing the value to the app you perceive.
Without knowing what paying VIPs look for or how they use it makes this discussion a little hard. For me the value is principally in the ease of scrobbling and tracking what’s up next in series I watch.
As far as your comment about the “crusade” I get it, it’s getting old I’m sure reading these type of comments, but as a reasonable person I’m sure you can also appreciate that supporting users of Trakt are also getting tired of the constant crusade for being given something more for free. Especially seeing as so many of the posts became repetitive by a small group of antagonistic users.
Just to clarify though, I can easily see why people are upset over the 100 item list limit as after all I have two lists with well over 600 items on each of them. Obviously the better course of action would have been for people to have been made aware of possible upcoming changes and limits unless a wider support base was built. That didn’t happen. Had it then maybe the doubling of VIP cost might not have been needed either. Although with the revelation of the cost for Younify who knows.
Well. I am a long way from wealthy.
I started as a free user of this app for the first few months.
I realised the benefits of the app and how much I used it and rely on it.
I decided that I would go VIP because it was really affordable, mostly excellent, fast, reliable, efficient, easy to use and frankly, I wanted to support it, the development and the people behind it.
Let’s face it, the price of VIP will probably not buy a round of coffees, so my small payment doesn’t support much. It definitely isn’t like I am giving the free users a free lunch, just a few extra pennies. It isn’t like every time they look for something, another 20 goes out of my account.
I think giving it free, is a good way to get people like me, a chance to use the app, enjoy the app and a majority will perhaps go ahead to get VIP.
VIPs subbed me, while I got to know the app.
So, you could do a “Free 3 month trial” But how much time and effort would you put in to a 3 month trial? It took me hours and even years and I still haven’t got everything I want, because things are always moving forward.
Energy costs alone have gone up so much in recent years. That alone is driving up the cost of anything that uses energy in the making of products, from bread to servers, all have to cover the rise. Even the coffee and energy drinks that power the people behind trakt, have gone up!
So, sadly, costs will go up. The only thing we can do is pay, go back to basic and be subbed by VIPs, or delete.
As long as the costs are reasonable and it is within my budget, I am happy to pay. What is done with my money, after I have paid it, is down to them. As long as I get what I am paying for, with the price upfront and accurate description, I am happy.
Maybe basic free account could get less, to “encourage” people to join, would work. But what could be removed, to make it useable?
Free, could maybe just be a look up for media? With a token payment for the ability to make lists and 3rd tier being VIP?
But I am happy with things as they are, for another year at least. Then evaluate it all again.
I know the list limit is currently not an issue you’re willing or maybe able to negotiate on. But even with it not affecting me, I can definitely understand how people exceed the fairly low limit.
I’d also think quite a few Trakt users are importing or linking external lists they’ve created or are maintaining. As an example mdblist allows free users 4 lists of 10,000 items each:
While I can’t imagine people needing 40,000 items on a list, it would seem there should be room at some point for some flexibility or adjustment maybe. Or maybe a similar type of variable would be something Trakt could try to offer?
The comments to my original post leaves me with a number of thoughts:
my belief is that the original model for Trakt is that it was Free, not Freemium., developed initially as a cool little idea to keep track of the multitude of shows and movies most of us watch. VIP was a reward to the developers for their unselfishness
over time, Trakt became a business with increasing expenses for all the additional features the devs envisioned and the user base suggested
Trakt was slow to move the model from free to freemium, leaving the majority of the users to expect their expanding use of the system to remain free
the devs and staff deserve to be rewarded for their years of dedication to this app. Obviously, I don’t know their financials but people seem to tend to forget that they have families to feed, clothe, etc. and there are many other costs involved to run and maintain the system.
there may be alternatives, but I believe there would be a significant uproar if suddenly Justin and crew decided “I don’t need this sh*t, FU, Trakt is no more”. There are no guarantees Trakt will outlive any of us.
if I were king (Justin), I’d rethink the pricing structure, making Trakt a pure Freemium app. Wikipedia defines Freemium as:
Blockquote Freemium , a portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium”, is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software.
I acknowledge that comments, Trakt ratings, anticipated and other items would be reduced but most of that is readily available through out her sources (IMDb, etc)
there would be continued revolt but MY vision of Trakt would only have watched history, up next and a small watchlist for free, as Freemium should give a useable taste but should be encouraging paid users to support the infrastructure. The first paid tier would be at a nominal cost (no more that $1/mo) and add the first level of “nice to have” (with restrictions). Additional tiers would add additional features and increasing limits.
I doubt anyone has read this far, or if they have, without being outraged at some of my thoughts. I know I don’t run this system and I’m sure many of you are glad I don’t, but I’m hoping Justin and his team have been considering all his options and the perceived mistakes he/they have made and want to be sure all opinions and feedback are considered going forward.
@Ohifriend - (I’m replying it here since you asked.)
I mean, the other offering from the VIP subscription are pretty standard or weak so the only thing that can justify majority of a $60 subscription is the automation of tracking that is Younify. So if anything $15 per user actually seems low considering that it seems like most people are not using Younify to automate tracking. In which case, the cost might actually be more per user if the total Younify relying users are way low and might even bleed into non-Younify relying user.
The pricing structure you guys have is way too weird. You increased the VIP price but aren’t 99% of your VIP users already on a grandfathered rate? Some might even be on $15 rate. So, you are just discouraging the new users from taking on VIP all the while locking your existing once from leaving VIP. Which means, you did this to keep the existing inflow of money from decreasing and was not actually meant to increase the inflow. Who is actually gonna pay for a service that costs more than buying a AAA game or almost the same as getting Apple TV+ for a year.
This pricing is not meant for increasing business at all. It is for making sure you don’t lose the existing business. If anything, this is a problem for the existing VIP users more than potential users. They are forced into paying for this even when they don’t use the service cause if they leave once, they will lose the grandfather rate and have a FOMO. Its like Netflix having a one time offer of getting subscription at $5/m but lose it if you discontinue even for a month. Even if someone just planned to get it for a month, their fear of losing this option would making them a lifetime user. Pretty shady stuff.
You could have just increased the price by $5 for everyone than making it double for the new users. But you wanna act like a good guy to existing users while basically extorting the same people for life. If you have a 100k VIP users and you increase price by $5, then you already earn half a million more per year without incurring additional costs. By comparison, you would have to add 10k(10% of existing) additional VIP users just to make the same revenue but since those new VIP users will also cause additional costs, like Younify, to make the same profit as increasing price for by $5 for 100k users you actually have to add more than 20k VIP users(20%) or more. In any case, your business model is weak and it will only cause you problem in the future. Better to let go of the grandfather rate and shady practices. You are not being benevolent to the existing users, you are just acting like it. It is also likely that you noticed alot of VIP users are leaving slowly and wanted to stop more from leaving by increasing the price and locking them into the grandfathered rate.
) but I’m almost certain that the “pay per user” is based on VIPs who’ve used the automatic tracking, not for all free users too.